Sermon: Sunday of the Passion / Palm Sunday RCL B

Charlie Brown is sitting under a tree talking to Peppermint Patty, who asks him, “What do you think security is, Chuck?” His answer: “Security is sleeping on the back seat of the car when you’re a little kid, and you’ve been somewhere with your mom and dad, and it’s night, and you’re riding home in the car, asleep. You don’t have to worry about anything—your mom and dad are in the front seat and they do all the worrying. They take care of everything.” To which Peppermint Patty responds, “That’s real neat!” Charlie Brown comments, “But it doesn’t last! Suddenly, you’re grown up, and it can never be that way again! Suddenly, it’s over, and you’ll never get to sleep in the back seat again! Never!” Peppermint Patty asks: “Never?” “Absolutely never,” Charlie Brown says. Peppermint Patty pauses for a moment, then says, “Hold my hand, Chuck!”

Robert Fulghum, the author of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten said, “When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.”

I invite you to join in as we walk through this Holy Week. The week that changed the world. There are times during this week when it will be joyful, and even though we know how the story ends, there are also times that can be scary and still others times that will break our hearts. Therefore, Peppermint Patty’s request and Fulghum’s advice – holding hands and sticking together – seems appropriate.

Together, with our Lord, we enter Jerusalem, go to the upper room, and then to the garden where he will be arrested. We will watch as he is put on trial, mocked, beaten, and hung on a cross. We will hear his final words and then for three days we will wait.

The words and liturgy we share are not a history lesson, but are instead a “making present” of those mighty acts, meaning that not only do we hear and see what took place, but that we also participate in them.

Today it begins. Together, let us enter into the events of our salvation.